U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,810 discloses an automatic cooking apparatus, in which ingredients are automatically dispensed into a cooking vessel and heated, stirred, covered, and uncovered according to a prescribed recipe. In one embodiment of that invention, the ingredients are pre-loaded into a compartmentalized carousel which rotates on command under the control of a microprocessor to bring the appropriate compartment into position for dispensing its ingredients into the vessel. In addition, the apparatus may automatically stir the ingredients in the cooking vessel with a continuous stirring motion for specified periods of time, and the apparatus may rotate a closure member into position to close off the top of the cooking vessel when the recipe calls for covering the vessel.
Thus, the cooking apparatus must drive three shafts at irregular intervals--for the compartmentalized carousel, the stirrer, and the lid--and at least two of these shafts, for the carousel and the lid, are driven through specified angles less than a full rotation. In a commercial embodiment of the apparatus it is desirable to make the apparatus as compact as possible and to keep the cost of manufacture as low as possible. However, known mechanisms for driving the shafts have employed complicated gear mechanisms and/or multiple drive motors.